54 comments:

Actually, a point neither makes is that homosexuals will sometimes be coupled with someone who looks like their twin sibling. It's not narcissism, but what is it when your lover looks like a mirror image of yourself?

I think the debate is about what word to substitute there. I understand their use of "purely" though it's not a term that I would use. Maybe "Nakedly" :)

The underlying biological imperative for men is at some level promiscuity. Spreading sperm to the largest number of acceptable females that can be viably supported in the community, thus yielding the greatest number of potential offspring that survive to maturity themselves.

The female imperative is quite different. To attempt to deny those sorts of truths is a waste of time.

I haven't looked at the video, but the primary point about gay men being sexually involved with others who play by their rules is quite apt. I am a gay psychotherapist and I use this point in teaching. Many of the behaviors that people ascribe to some aspect of gay sexual orientation are better and more simply ascribed to the fact that gay men are...men. And since the object of our desire sees sex in largely the same way as we do, you have things like higher numbers of partners, strong emphasis on the visual, etc. Consider how different lesbian sexual culture is from gay male. Again, it's the dominance of one gender. I don't know if calling it "pure" means much, but I find that you can make a lot of sense out of our group behaviors by using this frame.

As for our narcissism, that's a larger topic, and certainly one that we share with the larger culture. Some gay couples do seem to mirror each other externally. Most that I know and work with, however, have the issues which come from large differences between them. Hermeneutically, it's a catch-22, though. If we pair with someone who's like us, it's a sign of our narcissism. If we pair with someome who's different, it's a sign of our defectiveness, looking to have it filled by someone else. My guess is, like most humans, it's a combo. In therapy, I often discover that surface mirroring or difference is balanced by sameness or difference in deeper issues.

By the way, narcissism seems to be getting a bad rap these days - unfairly, in my inexpert opinion. NPD was officially included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in, I think, 1980 and it is still not fully understood, of course. But there is such a thing as healthy narcissism. People these days often seem to forget that.

Both (Coulter and Wright) are, of course correct. In practice (which is, after all, what she was talking about) homosexuals are more promiscuous than heterosexuals.

Wright's analysis is apt in pointing out that this is due to the fact that men are predisposed to more frequent sexual contacts than are women. Given this, sex between consenting males who are naturally interested in frequent sex results in more overall promiscuous behavior.

From Wikipedia: "Albert Harry Goldman (April 15, 1927 – March 28, 1994) was an American professor and author. Albert Goldman wrote about the culture and personalities of the American music industry both in books and as a contributor to magazines. However, he is best known for his controversial biographies on Elvis Presley and John Lennon. In his 1981 book titled Elvis, the author repeatedly belittled the late singer over his weight problems, his diet, his choice of performing costumes, and his sexual appetites and peculiarities. He even suggests that Elvis's promiscuity masked latent homosexuality."

"This is part of a discussion of whether it's bigoted to say -- as Ann Coulter did -- that male homosexuals are more promiscuous than male heterosexuals."

A bigot is not a person who says something you don't want to hear, or that you think is revealed to the great masses only at peril to us all. A bigot is someone who blindly adheres to the virtue of his own particular opinions, facts, creeds, paradigms, whatever, in the face of all contrary evidence, argument, philosophy, etc. An obvious corollary is that a true (as in, factually verifiable) statement by itself can never be evidence of bigotry. So if Ann C.'s statement is factually incorrect - if there is no way to fairly say that, in at least one reasonable sense, "male homosexuals are more promiscuous than male heterosexuals" - then she may be mistaken. Someone who is mistaken is not automatically, nor even probably, a bigot. Should she then, knowing that the statement may be incorrect, proceed to make a career of that statement, tossing it off from rooftops and plastering it on billboards and yakking about it on national TV, then a reasonable man might suspect that genuine bigotry is involved.

So, is the statement true? I have no idea. Common wisdom says that it is, but common wisdom is notoriously unreliable re matters of fact. Does Ms. Coulter have useful data? Do you?

There's something very weird to me in explaining male homosexual behavior by reference to reproductive strategies. I start to feel that we are dealing with an unfalsifiable belief system, which is, of course, not science.

A more complicated issue is when it's politically permissible to say that gay men are more promiscuous than straight men (I presume that Peter Beinart isn't going to launch an attack on Robert Wright), and when it isn't.

Perhaps the difficulty is that the term "promiscuous" is generally perjorative. I believe it is generally taken to mean not just multiple partners, but a cavalier or unthinking approach to sexual relationships. I don't know whether Coulter claims to be talking about promiscuity in a value-free way, but if so I suspect she is being disingenuous.

The "agrees to your rules" analysis makes sense to me, in term of both the number of sex partners and the narcissism. What I'd really be interested in knowing is whether dealing exclusively with people who agree to your rules affects the quality of the relationships or the overall satisfaction the partners derive from them. usmale?

It seems to me that the social science studies do indeed show that homosexuals are more sexually active (let's jettison the somewhat loaded "promiscuous" term) than male heterosexuals. But that's not because of homosexuality qua homosexuality; it's because it's men having sex with men. It's a gender difference and not a sexual orientation difference.

It's men behaving badly; not gay men behaving badly (so to speak).

As Wright points out, the restraints (or requirements or demands, whatever one wishes to call them) that women place on male partners do not exist when the relationship is between two men.

And the evidence shows that if you remove some of those female-male restraints (pregnancy concerns, economic concerns) that male-female sex increases. My guess is that if you were to somehow (who knows how) remove all of those limits that females place on sex with men, the men and women would be a sexually active as gay men.

Of course if you change women to that extent, you no longer have a woman. Just two men with different bodies.

Think about those male heterosexuals where the female restraints are removed or mitigated. Powerful men, rock stars, actors. My guess is that their sexual activity closely mimics or replicates that of gay men.

Part of what civil marriage is, I believe, is negotiating the differences between male and female in a way that minimizes bad outcomes without becoming too intrusive in privacy so long as things aren't going catastrophically wrong. But when you don't have to manage those differences, what's the point of using the same institution?

Beinart's claim that an assertion like Coulter's was ipso facto bigoted was news to me, but apparently in some circles that's how it works.

It took only a few minutes on the web to find studies, both older and recent, that backed her up. Here is one concerning HIV-positive males:

A total of 3723 HIV-infected persons (1918 men who have sex with men [MSM], 978 women, and 827 heterosexual men) were interviewed in clinics and community-based agencies in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York City, and San Francisco from June 2000 to January 2002 regarding sexual and drug use behaviors that confer risk for transmitting HIV. Less than one quarter of women and heterosexual men had 2 or more sexual partners, whereas 59% of MSM reported having multiple partners. Most unprotected vaginal and anal sexual activity took place in the context of relationships with other HIV-positive individuals.

Now I realize HIV+ men may not be behaviorally typical. But this is only one of many studies from the 1960's to the 2000's that basically confirmed Coulter's argument. In contrast, I didn't see any evidence contradicting her general claim, even on gay sites objecting to it.

(Incidentally, if you search on terms like 'homosexual' and 'promiscuity' the top results are evangelical Christian 'pro-family' sites that cite older studies; if you search on terms like 'MSM' and 'multiple partners' the top results are medical studies.)

Certainly there are a lot of bigoted uses for this kind of information, and using it properly calls for extreme compassion and sensitivity (things I don't expect to find from Ann Coulter). My sense is that the politics of gay marriage work against that. They pressure opponents to use the data tendentiously, and pressure proponents to pretend it isn't there and fall back on ad hominem arguments.

I only spent a few minutes on this; there may well be countervailing evidence I didn't uncover. I'd appreciate correction from anyone who knows better.

I haven't seen the clip, since I'm at work. However, I'm very familar with the concept. (If it's the same Robert Wright, he wrote a book called "The Moral Animal", dealing with the evolutionary origins of human behavior.) The general concept is reflected in the statement (from Leda Cosmides, I think) that "Men's and women's breeding strategies interfere with each other." David Buss' book "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating" is a good primer.

It's only male homosexuals who are more promiscuous than male heterosexuals. They are just behaving like normal male mammals and women alternate between condemning that behavior and trying to exploit it for their own benefit. Female homosexuals are apparently much less promiscuous and many lesbian relationships are completely asexual.

However, evolutionary psychologists have a real problem explaining why homosexuality exists at all.

I mean, imagine being married to Hillary Rodham, who, speaking heterosexually, could only fit into some master political plan.

Next is Bill's latter taste in women. For example, the one with the nose, and Monica. These seem to indicate his orange/red period, an evolving need to abuse mindless objects.

Also keep in mind that when Hillary was at the peak of her "feminine" beauty - she was wearing very comfortable shoes (i.e. sandals). You know, the one's those wacky male professors wear around NYU and UC.

But then the "master" plan breaks down when Mrs. Clinton wants to cash in - to collect her part of the arranged marriage; to finally become an elected and vital Marxist. Is she asexual, btw?

Meanwhile, the country is going to pot.

Then Bill finds himself up in Harlem with a passing case of jungle fever. His black period.

Half joking, Ms. Coulter concludes his next sexually frustrated, same-sex step. Not to imply it's congenital, but more an unintended result.

Coulter's 100% right. Ever watch Will & Grace? Practically every other line on that show is sex-related. Sure, other TV shows will occasionally have a dirty line, but nowhere near to the extent of that show. 'Nuff said.

Furthermore, Coulter's use of empirical evidence to prove homosexula promiscuity - ie, "open your eyes, moron!" - is perfectly valid. If I were to tell you that the average black ( I emphasize average) was a better athlete than the average white, would I need to cite "chapter and verse" evidence, as that whiny loser Beinart demands? Of course not - I'd just point to the NBA.

Some liberals are afraid of this, because if empirical evidence posits unequivocally that there are physical diffrences bewteen the races, the same evidence shows mental diffrences between the races. But that's an old problem with liberals. They've always been scared of the truth.

I was the only straight person in Harvard Law's first "Sexual Orientation and the Law" class in 1991, and my male and female classmates were pretty candid about the deep differences between gay men and lesbian women.

Our class spent a lot of time debating the strategic value of pursuing same-sex marriage: my female classmates thought we should do it, while my male classmates were FAR from excited about the idea. The arguments against it were (a) there could be a huge political backlash and (b) do we (gay men) want to be herded into a monogamous straight-jacket?

I've been impressed with how well the gay and lesbian community has maintained its united front despite the backlash over the Goodridge decision in Massachusetts. With nine courts against them so far this year, I had expected to hear some of the gay men start recriminating.

One problem most people have with discussion of group differences is that they're afraid, with reason, that people will use any evidence of group differences bluntly, and judge people by a group rather than as an individual. "So what if I'm dumb, on average group X to which I belong is smarter than group Y to which you belong," and things far more hurtful.

When people compose their own identity and how they view other people through group memberships, it's an inevitable consequence.

Well, by that logic masturbation would be the purest expression of sexuality. I'm not sure male homosexuality expresses male sexuality, or even sexuality, at all. The very concept of sex requires two genders.

And Beinart looks unusually stupid in calling Coulter a bigot for believing that male gays are more promiscuous than straights. That's just an empirical fact. And even though I look obviously straight, gay guys often hit on me...I get the feeling they're not just promiscuous, they're desperately promiscuous.

And they seem to think I should be flattered(!) Get this, gay guys: coming on to a straight guy is about as flattering as a dog trying to hump your leg.

It expresses INSTINCTUAL male sexuality -- the more orgasms, the more partners, the better.

A feeling. Not a rational thought about how rational human beings "want" to act.

Yes, negative promiscuousness. Promiscuity IS and should be a perjorative, negative word.

Using somebody else's body as a masturbation aid is something those who do so, as I have done as a hetero (to my own sad shame now), should not be proud of.

Have you noticed the big reduction in a search for a "gay" gene -- since it means that folks could test their unborn and abort the unwanted future gays (like Chinese & Indians abort unwanted girls -- leading to some 30 million not-to-be married Chinese young men, available for ... adventures.)

Civil Unions is the right compromise; marriage is for the children. Divorce is also terrible -- see Jesus in Sermon on the Mount about divorce and adultery (recently reread closely while translating it into Slovak).

I wonder if gay male promiscuity is fairly laid at the feet of them being both 'cheating men.' It occurs to me that gay men have to overcome societies expectations of them in an extremely strong way, societies disaproval of multiple partners is much less than societies disapproval of two male partners (my impressions are that gay women have less pressure here, although possibly more when it comes to reproduction etc.) Since societies disapproval has been overcome on the large thing, the smaller thing matters less.

I also think that this is connected to the gay male 'twink' culture, especially towards underage teens. Not that gays are naturally more inclined to teens than others, but that the social constraints that sex should only be with adults, preferably of fairly similar ages has less hold on them.

It would be interesting to see what 'gay culture' would be like without the social ostracization that currently happens. I suspect that a lot of the differences between hetero and homosexual cultures would disappear.

At most it would suggest that a subset of black people are very well adapted to playing Basketball (tall, in other words), not that blacks as a group are "more athletic" than whites as a group.

(After all, the obvious counter-example is Hockey, which is both athletic and overwhelmingly white, no?)

I suspect, based on the self-reporting data of sexual histories, that Coulter is likely factually correct - but the argument by parallel to the NBA isn't very good.

After all, if I "open my eyes" I'll find that none of the gay men I know go to sex clubs and have sex with random men by the dozen; those that do, like black people in the NBA, cause a perception that might not match the actual facts of the matter.

Anne and Peter both fail evolutionary psychology 101. Of course, gay men are more promiscuous than straight men, because they CAN be. If women were waiting in the bushes behind the bathrooms at the rest stops, straight men would be stopping off, too.

Coulter can be cut a little slack because women try to repress this truth about men. Beinart, calling someone a bigot for stating a fact that gay men are more promiscuous...what a idiot.

This debate seems a little silly to me. A friend once told me his theory: take 25 single women. If you are a decent-looking guy, three will probably have sex with you if you give them your undivided attention for a few hours. Fifteen simply will not have sex with you, ever. The other seven, it depends on what you say how you act, what you wear, etc., etc.

Let's look at this from the other side. Take 25 single guys. If you are a decent-looking woman, what will happen. Will you have sex with 20? 25?

There is nothing more promiscuous about gayness, or gay men because they are gay. There is something more promiscuous about MEN. Gay men have more sexual partners because they can. Straight guys would be just as promiscuous, if only women were easier.

This is really simple. I'm not sure what the fuss is about.

One last thing: the control group here should be bona fide lesbians. I know there are some lesbians who read this board. My hypothesis would be that lesbians hook up promiscuously the least.

"And they seem to think I should be flattered(!) Get this, gay guys: coming on to a straight guy is about as flattering as a dog trying to hump your leg."

Strange, of the straight men I've been involved with, all of them came on to me. And not to gross anyone out with what have been described here by Hammer (and what a big hammer you have!) as "gory details" but men who have sex with men are often better at certain sexual activities than many women, according to men I know who have had partners of both genders.

Smilin' Jack, you charmer, you should be flattered that any old terrier would give your calf the time of day.

Strange, of the straight men I've been involved with, all of them came on to me.

Maybe you need to recheck the contemporary definition of "straight."

And not to gross anyone out with what have been described here by Hammer (and what a big hammer you have!) as "gory details" but men who have sex with men are often better at certain sexual activities than many women, according to men I know who have had partners of both genders.

But when women do it it doesn't make me want to throw up. There's a lot to be said for that.

Smilin' Jack, you charmer, you should be flattered that any old terrier would give your calf the time of day.

David might be kidding, but his NBA analogy actually is even weaker that Sigivald demonstrates.

He writes, for example, "if empirical evidence posits unequivocally that there are physical diffrences bewteen the races, the same evidence shows mental diffrences between the races." Huh? Clearly, physical and mental differences are not inextricably linked.

Second, NBA rosters tell us nothing about the ability of average athletes. There are no average athletes in the NBA. At most, the NBA tells us something about a small percentage of the very best athletes in the game.

Moreover, there is nothing unequivocal about the evidence he cites. Obviously, cultural (and sometimes political) differences play a role. The white "bias" of the NHL is one example. Another is major league baseball before 1947. Looking strictly at the "empirical evidence," it was obvious that no blacks were good enough to play big league ball until Jackie Robinson came along.

Those are obvious cases, but more subtle difference also persist. For instance, in the 1960s, when blacks were well established in major league baseball, many complained that, other things being equal, white players were still favored.

To test that allegation, I once did some roster counting. Sure enough, while Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson were dominating play on the field, the least talented players (backup catchers, middle relievers, utility infielders) were disproportionately white. Were whites more gifted bench warmers? Or were black players required to meet a higher standard to make the roster?

The point is that cultural factors can continue to play a major role long after "official" discrimination ends. I hate to make things complicated for David, but that's the way it is for us liberals.

And can we stop with the myth that gay men actually want to sleep with straight men.

As if.

99% of straight men are overweight, smelly, slobs. And they can't dress to save their life. No - we don't want to sleep with you. Like I'd actually sleep with a guy who wears Levis with white sneakers . . .

But we might try and freak you out by pretending we want to, if we're bored that is.

Downtown Lad -- That was a little obnoxious. It's not really true that nearly all straight men are ugly sloths.

Also, having lived for two years in the epicenter of gay Washington DC, my observation would be that gay men are not better-looking at all. They do tend to take better care of their appearance because they know it will help them get laid. But that's not the same as being better-looking.

Lastly, I would suggest that gay men want to have sex with other people they find attractive. Period. I'm the same way. Nothing else to it. There is nothing else in the psychology of the gay male mind than what's in the straight male mind in terms of wanting to get laid.

For straight men, sexual contact is regulated by women, who perceive sex somewhat differently than men do.

For women, no matter how enjoyable or fulfilling it may be, sex is a risky business (the whole getting pregnant and having to deal with the results thing). No matter how much an individual woman may want children, I think it's safe to say that the number of women who want pregnancy to be _completely_ randomized approaches zero. Also, sex is about intimacy and trust for women as a way of hedging the risks. No matter how strong their sexual desire may be, anonymous multiple partners are just not an appealing concept for women.

For men, sex is really no big deal. No really. Despite the ...intensity of certain urges and the extreme lengths some men go to fulfill them, intimacy and trust and emotional commitment are not required and usually not expended in sex. Of course men need emotional intimacy and some become trained by women and society to connect that to sexual relationships, but that's not necessarily most men's first choice in the matter.

For gay men, sex is regulated by other factors. Age and appearance are important here as is access (an important consideration considering their extreme minority status). A relatively small number of (young attractive) men living in gay meccas can get all the sex they want which can be a _lot_ and this can skew the averages. Most gay men learn to settle for a lot less.

On the other hand, long term promiscuity isn't good for anyone physically (or emotionally I'd argue) and most men (regardless of orientation) have settling down impulses along with those wild oat impulses.

"Gay men have more sexual partners because they can. Straight guys would be just as promiscuous, if only women were easier.This is really simple. I'm not sure what the fuss is about." and"gay men are not better-looking at all. They do tend to take better care of their appearance because they know it will help them get laid."

Both comments are totally accurate. Seven, those 2 years in Dupont Circle must have been quite an education.

The biological imperative that drives men to promiscuity: I get that. I don't get why homosexual promiscuity serves that imperative. One of these decades they're gonna figure out what it is that makes some of us homosexual, resolving the second biggest mystery in the universe, the biggest being why they put locks on the doors of 7/11's. I actully saw a locksmith working on a door at a 7/11 once. How did they know the lock was broken? But I guess I'm getting too far off the topic.

99% of straight men are overweight, smelly, slobs. And they can't dress to save their life.

I hate to cross posts here, but it seems relevant that spouting wild generalizations and old stereotypes makes a lot folks pretty upset. What of it Ann? Does this taint all of dtl's comments both past and present? What if he was drunk when he wrote that? No, especially if he were drunk. I forget.

My favorite part is when the guy on the right asks, "Why aren't there straight bathhouses?" I know that I shouldn't expect too much from these two, considering that they're trying to seriously analyze an Ann Coulter comment (only a slightly less academic pursuit than analyzing the underlying themes of "Stars Are Blind") and that they decided that it would be okay to broadcast their offices all over the internet without even straightening up their bookshelves, but still. Silly question.

A woman that has anonymous heterosexual sex with multiple partners is called a slut. (Of course, sluts aren't always so drastic. A slut is also a woman who, as far as a casual observer can tell, is having no sex but takes off her shirt in front of strangers. Or a nine-year-old that wears a bikini. Etc., etc.) There is no male equivalent of the word. Men who do the same thing are, at the very least, just acting on biology; apparently some degree of promiscuity is expected of them. This massive inequality in what society expects of men and women makes an exact straight copy of a gay bathhouse impossible, especially if the question is about bathhouses in the early- to mid- 20th century. Women wouldn't want to go because just walking inside would condemn them as sluts. And even if women did, the men would still look down on them--they're fun, sure, and there's a time and a place for it, but they're too easy! When it's time to settle down you pick a lady who wears modest dresses and bakes cookies. In the gay bathhouse, though, the men are equal--it's a bigot-less place where they are free to be as homosexual as they please.

I agree that there are differences between male and female sexuality--to start, one has been widely suppressed and trivialized. Michael Farris commented that women don't have multiple partners because they are afraid of becoming pregnant. On the other hand, most men apparently could care less about how many children they father. Suppose a woman (apparently birth control doesn't exist in Michael Farris' image of the world) does get pregnant through anonymous sex. If men can be so indifferent about babies, what's to stop her from feeling the same--getting an abortion, or simply ignoring it and partying on as usual? Oh, but of course--every single woman ever has this magic innate desire to love babies and yearn for motherhood. But when discussing men, their motives fall all over this great big spectrum. I mean, Bill Clinton loves having sex with women and this--of all things!--points to his latent homosexual desires.

And, of course, the only place in this entire thread where the influence of society is mentioned is about men being trained to settle down! Clearly.